


Mind's poison

by SpaceMalarkey



Category: The Legend of Zelda & Related Fandoms, The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time
Genre: Angst, Character Death, Dementia, F/M, Hurt No Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-10
Updated: 2019-05-10
Packaged: 2020-02-29 16:39:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 843
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18782089
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SpaceMalarkey/pseuds/SpaceMalarkey
Summary: Alzheimer's disease is horrifying.





	Mind's poison

Link is so tired. He loves her so much, but he can’t do this alone anymore. He cant take care of her and their daughters at the same time. He has to get help, but he is scared to lose her. Every day she forgets him. She speaks of him, of her husband to him, but she cant recognise him anymore. She calls him a nice handsome man, but she is married, and tells him he has to find another girl to compliment.

Sometimes she remembers, usually right before they go to bed. She kisses him on the cheek and tells him she loves him, and then she falls asleep and wakes in the middle of the night, screaming that there is a stranger in her bed. Screaming for her father.

Sometimes she wakes up and tells him he has to leave before her father comes home and finds him in bed with her, as if she is a teenager again.

 

He has to get help, but it feels wrong to send her away. Their daughters have told him they understand, that their mother needs professional help.

But it feels wrong. Malon belongs here, on the ranch.

Yet, for the sake of his daughters and for his own health, as well as Malon's, he has to send her to a home. Where she can get the help and attention she needs.

 

The first nights alone in their bedroom is awful. He feels empty and alone. He feels hollow, like something has carved out his heart. It gets better with time, makes it easier to breathe. But the nights are always hard.

The first visits go well. She remembers him briefly, but she gets restless and keeps walking away. When he comes in the door, she smiles, and he takes her on a walk in the garden. She talks about all sorts of things, like she is just getting to know him again.

Other visits are harder. She insists that he is not her husband, and that she has never seen him before. She throws a fit and yells at him, and Link quietly excuses himself when her caretakers calm her down.

 

She has fallen in love with another man. Another patient with the same disease as her. Link knows he should be angry, but all he feels is relief. Relief that his love has found happiness in the face of these horrible odds. He feels happy for her, but he also feels crushing agony. She has replaced him entirely. Their entire life together is now gone from her mind. Their daughters and him, both are forgotten.

That day, he takes her wedding ring home, and he places it in a box along with all the letters she had sent him over the years.

He cries himself to sleep.

 

He keeps visiting, only to make sure she is alright. Some days she is with her new boyfriend. Other days she sits alone, staring out the window with empty eyes. She thinks him a friend now, and Link is grateful she does. The caretakers have explained to him that her disease has progressed, that she will lose more of herself now. He finds it terrifying, but he still visits, still stays with her and holds her when she cries, remembering something that confuses her. He shushes her gently and tells her it doesn’t matter, that she is here now, and she is safe. She will be alright.

She thanks him, and calls him Fairy boy one last time.

 

The next time he visits, it's to see her body one final time. To take her belongings, few as they may be, back home. To make funeral arrangements at the ranch.

The day they place her body in the grave, his heart shatters completely. She is gone, and now he is alone.

 

He makes his final moments count. He knows the girls are safe at the ranch, knows they will be fine, and that they will continue the line.

He can’t help but feel bitter. Everything was taken from him, his life a toy for divine beings wishing to play their boredom away. His struggles and his deeds were never recognised, his daughters weren’t interested in learning from him. He was dying without being able to see them one final time.

He was lying against a tree stump in the lost woods, desperately defending his childhood home from the hordes.

His armor was cracked from all the blows he had taken, his vision blurry. He had failed again. He takes a shuddering breath, and listens as the monsters pass him by, flooding the forest behind him.

In his mind, he always knew this was how he would go out. Fighting and failing, bleeding out slowly and in pain. Regretting everything he had ever done.

He wishes he could see Malon again, wishes he could see their daughters smile at him one last time.

All he sees is a moblin, and its huge spear coming straight at his face.

 

_Ah, how crude. What an awful way to go._


End file.
